“She’s a poor creature who has sought refuge with me from her persecutors,” said Beniah, turning to the prince, while the old woman fell to crooning a wild song in a low voice, accompanying the music—if such it may be called—by a swaying motion of her body to and fro.
Seeing that she meant to sit there, and that she apparently heard nothing, Bladud resumed the conversation where it had been interrupted.
“Now, as I was saying, you know the country in all directions, and can tell me of the most likely part where I can find what I want—a solitude where I shall be able to escape from the face of man, and build a hut to live in till I die. It may be long, it may be short, before death relieves me. Meanwhile, I can hunt and provide myself with food till the time comes.”
The crooning of the old woman stopped at this point, and she sank her face on her hands as if she had fallen asleep.
“I know of a man—a hunter,” said Beniah, “a wild sort of being, who lives a long way from here, in a beautiful part of the land, where there is a wonderful swamp with a hot spring in the midst of it. Besides hunting, the man who lives there cultivates the ground a little, and keeps a few cattle and pigs. It may be that he can put you in the way of finding what you want; and you need not tell him about your disease, for you are not yet sure about it. Thus you will have an opportunity of keeping out of the way of men until you find out whether the doctor is right about it. He may be wrong, you know. Diseases sometimes resemble each other without being the same.”
Bladud shook his head.
“There can be no doubt that I am doomed,” he said. “I know the disease too well.”
The Hebrew also believed that, if the doctor was right in his opinion, there was no hope for the youth. Being unwilling, however, to dwell upon this point, he asked—
“How did you come by it?”
“Very simply,” answered the prince, who thereupon entered into a graphic account of the incident which we have already recorded. Having done so, he made up his mind, after some further talk, to pay a visit to the hunter who dwelt in the region of the Hot Swamp.